Something: a 24 Hour Comic

Created at the Belfast 24 Hour Comics Day event at Catalyst arts, 18/19 October 2008. Here’s a blog post about the event. The cover was more colourful in the original, but it seems my scanner doesn’t like highlighter pens.

Hi. I am currently researching the link between Irish Mythology and Comics. I was wondering if you have any advice?
I am looking for influences, themes, character traits, images, anything that would draw the two together. The idea is for a television programme and is in the very early stage of development.

Interesting question. Aside from modern adaptations, I don’t think there’s much direct influence. Early Ireland doesn’t seem to have been a very visual culture, and when it developed a tradition of representational art in early modern times, it adopted European styles. Look at the depictions of Erin, the personification of Ireland, in Irish political cartoons of the 19th century – she’s drawn in a very classical manner(here’s a link to an example by Thomas Fitzgerald). I’d guess the influence of Irish myth on comics has mostly been post-hippy, and a lot of it has a wiccan/neo-pagan element to it.